


Xpidercoven Origins

by Nowaki



Category: Hustle Cat
Genre: College, M/M, Mentions of Mental Illness, Xpidercoven, depressed Graves, developing magic, gettung together, goth bands, shy Nacht
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 15:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7393930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nowaki/pseuds/Nowaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nacht is used to being disliked. When he goes to college, he doesn't expect things to suddenly change. Then he meets Graves, the first person to like the sound of his voice. Graves forces himself into Nacht's life and before he knows it, they're in a band and learning magic.<br/>Turns out, college is good for more than just debt.</p><p>This is basically my headcanon of how Graves and Nacht got together and formed Xpidercoven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Xpidercoven Origins

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I made up Reese's dad's name. As far as I know he does not have a name however if and when I learn of one, I will change it.
> 
> Trigger Warning: possible dubious consent trigger.   
> Graves has a couple drinks to settle his nerves before hooking up with Nacht. None of this is graphically described, just mentioned. No one is hurt so hopefully neither will you!

His voice was always rough. Nacht always sounded like his throat was too dry or he'd smoked too much. People didn't wince when he spoke but he knew what it sounded like. There was a reason people didn't talk to him despite the fact that he tried his hardest to make himself approachable. He probably tried too hard.  
He quit baseball and took up guitar. A silver Mohawk completed his rebellious teenage look. He stopped trying to talk and for once, people stopped to listen. His skill with a guitar drew people in but as soon as he opened his mouth, they were gone.  
He didn't expect to things to change when he went to college. He wore dark clothes, stood apart from the crowd. The first time he played his guitar in the common room, only one person stopped by to invite him to a party. Against his better judgement he showed up, guitar strapped to his back, and hung around until the dude who'd invited him turned off the music and drunkenly announced that they were in the presence of a future rockstar. Embarrassment filled his gut but Nacht played. Luckily, the crowd quickly forgot about him and went back to whatever they were doing before the music stopped.  
It took him awhile to notice the man who'd sat across from him. He played a couple songs, waiting for the figure to leave like everyone else had but he stayed. He busied himself by looking at his guitar, an easy out. Ten minutes passed before he finally met the man's eyes.  
"I'm sorry for my roommate." He crossed his legs and leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. His long black hair pooled around his face. "He gets so easily carried away. He was right about you though."  
Nacht shrugged.  
"Cat got your tongue?" The guy asked, smirking. This guy was playing with him and Nacht wasn't in the mood. He didn't like games although the leather pants this guy had on... Maybe he just wanted a one night thing? He was pretty attractive, maybe the night wouldn't be a complete wash.  
"Your roommate do this a lot?" He asked, wincing at his own voice. It was too low, all but drown out.  
"Yes, Xavier tries to drag everyone he meets to a party. Its a good thing you showed up though, you're the most interesting person here."  
Nacht snorted.  
"I'm serious, you have real talent. I've never heard music like yours before."  
"It's nothing special." He dismissed the compliment however he couldn't stop his face from heating up. He'd spent his high school years pouring his emotions, his soul, into his music. He wrote away his loneliness and shoved all of the feelings he couldn't communicate into these songs.  
"You don't really believe that do you?" He asked, blue eyes peering right into Nacht's heart.  
"I don't need insincere flattery." He replied, voice slightly more gruff than usual.  
The other man looked taken aback. He had a worried look in his eyes. Maybe he'd been too harsh.  
"Look, your roommate is here so your room is empty," he sighed. "You going to invite me over or not?"  
"Oh! Of course! It's too nosey here to properly get acquainted. Let's go."  
It didn't take him long to grab a beer and duck out of the party, Nacht following right along with his guitar still slung over his shoulder.  
"So what's your name anyway?"  
"Doesn't matter." Nacht replied.  
"Well I can't just keep calling you guitar dude in my head now can I?" He asked, smiling. Nacht hadn't noticed in the dark how pale this guy was. He also had some really thick eye liner going on so Nacht assumed it was safe to bet he lightened his skin with makeup too.  
"You know, Mr. Tall Dark And Handsome," the guy started again, "for someone with such a nice voice, you sure don't talk a lot."  
He stopped dead in his tracks, making his new companion halt as well.  
"What?"  
"My voice."  
"What about it?"  
"You actually like my voice?" He asked, doubtful.  
"Well yeah," he said, gaze drifting down to the floor. In the well-lit hallway it was easy to see his blush spreading to his ears and down his neck. It was kind of cute. "Is it always that husky?"  
Husky?  
No one had ever used that word to describe the hoarse, gravely tenor of a voice.  
"Yeah. I swear I don't smoke every second of every day, that's just how it's been since my voice changed." He liked an occasional cigarette but he still liked to stress the fact that he couldn't change how he sounded to people.  
They arrived at the guy's room. He unlocked the door and a cloud of incense spilled into the hall. He yanked Nacht into his room and slammed the door before the smoke drew any unwanted attention.  
He wasn't sure what he expected but he wasn't disappointed. His new friend's room was all but painted black. A chandelier of bones hung from between the ceiling tiles and there were candles and sticks of incense covering every surface. Skulls were being used as bookends on their desks and a model skeleton labeled "Tony" greeted guests from its stand beside the door. If this guy lived in West Memphis, he'd be in jail.* That's how bad his room was.  
"What do you think?"  
"I think I am going to close my eyes and think of England."  
Goth boy made a face.  
"This isn't a booty call is it?" He asked, voice drier than ever.  
He shook his head, "I wanted to ask you to be in my band!"  
"You're in a band?"  
"Not yet but we just need a drummer!" He said happily. "I can make posters and people can try out. We should think of a good name. I'm thinking X Bloody X Tear X or something like that!"*  
"No X's." Nacht decided.  
"Just one?"  
"Okay fine. One but it has to be part of the word." He would just have to suggest band names without X's in them.  
"We'll work on that later! Like, when we start making shirts. You have your guitar, let's work on a song!"  
Although he was kind of annoying, he actually had a great voice and songs already written down. Adjustments would have to be made but for throwing shit together while one of them was tipsy, it wasn't too bad. It wasn't until the roommate came back and suggested they mix their names together for their band name that Nacht realized he still had no idea what his new bandmate's name was.  
"Oh, right! I'm Graves."  
The name was too fitting to be his real name.  
"But my coven calls me, the vampire Lestat."  
Nacht was more surprised by the fact that he wasn't surprised to learn this.  
"Nacht. I don't have a coven because I'm not a mega nerd but if I did, they'd just have to call me by my real name."  
"Dude, you're wearing a fishnet shirt. You could totally pass for one of us nerds." His roommate, Xavier, pointed out. 

He supposed it shouldn't surprise him too much that he was falling in love with Graves. Yeah, he was basically just a giant, goth nerd but Nacht kind of liked that. At night, Graves would curl up like a cat beside him and babble until he fell asleep about how they were going to be famous rock stars one day and that they'd live in their tour bus. When he got really tired, he would nozzle against Nacht's chest and talk about how lonely he was growing up and how he'd known when he heard his guitar that they were alike.  
"We have each other now." Nacht would rasp. "You'll always have me."  
Graves wanted to see the world, Nacht just wanted to see him happy.  
He didn't really think their band would go anywhere but one day Graves found a drummer and before Nacht could even fathom it, they were preforming at a shitty bar downtown.  
It wasn't like they were suddenly popular or anything but it was a start. Graves acted like they were on top of the world. He blew Nacht in the bathroom after their first show. They were both pretty tipsy but they'd been flirting for awhile so Nacht figured it was only natural that it happen eventually. When he woke up alone the next morning, he panicked until he found Graves folded into a ball at the foot of their bed. He blushed when Nacht kissed him on the forehead before classes.  
They didn't say anything about the new development in their relationship, they didn't need to. Graves hardly let Nacht out of his sight and after their second show the next week, he pounced. The skeleton Tony was turned to face the wall and he practically threw Nacht into the bed. It was a sloppy mess but it was bound to be. The next morning Graves was gone when he woke up. He returned wearing only a towel around his waist.  
"Xavier didn't come back last night." Nacht observed, a smile creeping onto his face.  
"No, he did not."  
Nacht turned and put his feet on the floor. "Last night was-"  
"Exhilarating." Graves finished.  
"I was going to go with awesome but there's a reason you're the song writer." He teased, earning a flick to the nose. "I bet we have another hour by ourselves."  
"I just cleaned up."  
"You can take another shower," Nacht replied, taking his hands and dragging him in. "With me."  
Graves shivered and glanced at the door. There was a click as the deadbolt slid into place. If he hadn't followed Graves' gaze and seen it move, he probably would have ignored the noise entirely.  
Nacht opened his mouth to ask how he'd bolted the door without moving but Graves was already crawling into his lap. A couple kisses to his neck and Nacht forgot all about the door.  
"Did you really turn Tony around last night?" He asked, seeing the skeleton over Grave's shoulder.  
"Yes, it appears I did. I drank quite a bit before we came home to quell the nerves."  
"Wait, you don't remember? How much did you have?" Nacht asked, concern obvious despite the gruff voice.  
"Just the Tony bit is fuzzy," Graves replied, as if it didn't matter. "Trust me, I can recollect everything else."  
As if to prove his statement, he leaned in to bite Nacht's neck which did ungodly things to his gut. Last night Graves had done the same thing after Nacht referred to him as his little vampire.  
"I'm still not comfortable with you drinking just so you can-"  
"I'm sober now." Graves reminded him, rolling his eyes. "We were both drinking. Don't make it weird."  
Nacht decided to save the argument for when he didn't have a naked Graves in his lap.

He completely forgot about the deadbolt. He forgot a lot of things that probably should have tipped him off. For example all of the scrap metal sculptures Graves had taken to building and how they rattled and fell over every time they kissed. He should have wondered why Graves never had to physically get up and answer the door instead of writing it off as "Xavier is an engineering major" which he'd just assumed because he saw him designing all sorts of things that later cluttered their room.  
It wasn't until he himself started changing that he knew something was wrong. His guitar strings needed replaced more often than usual and for awhile he was content to blame band practices. It wasn't until his guitar stopped working and he had to get it repaired that he discovered it was rusted on the inside. He knew instantly what he had to do.  
"We could probably fix it but there's still the source of the problem to deal with." Xavier said, examining the damage. "This isn't normal rust."  
"What do you mean?" Nacht asked.  
The two roommates looked at each other.  
"You didn't tell him?"  
"I was planning on it but- hey wait, it's not me doing it!" Graves said.  
"I know but it's possible you're influencing him. My mother has a knack for three unique things because she had her own talents and my father's rubbed off on her as well."  
"Excuse me but what the fuck are you two talking about?" Nacht asked before Graves could start arguing.  
They blinked at him stupidly and then shared a look.  
"Your boyfriend, not mine!" Xavier announced, hopping off his bed. He was gone in a matter of seconds.  
"Graves."  
"Yes?"  
"Explain."  
"I think it will be easier if I show you." Graves said after a moment. He held out his hand and one of his metal figurines floated over and landed in his palm.  
Nacht almost wished he was more surprised by the display. It made sense, he'd seen things before. The deadbolt and scarp metal for instance. He had enough sense to wonder if he was hallucinating.  
"There are lots of people who have magical energies in them but few ever discover it on their own. Sometimes it presents itself in little ways, people who never fail a test or almost always seem to win toys in those claw machines. Sometimes it's more miraculous, people will duck at the last minute before being killed because of a gut feeling or they'll suddenly find strength they didn't know they had.  
"People who have more potential toward an element are called adepts. Ultimately, once you unlock your powers, you become a witch like Xavier and I."  
"So, you're saying magic is what's wrong with my guitar?"  
"Yes."  
"And it's not you."  
"No. It's your own powers awakening. It seems that because you spend so much time around me it's affecting you."  
"My power is rusting my guitar?"  
"In a way, yes. You need to learn how to control your magic. You're very strong, the rust is actually spreading to the nonmetal parts... I'm almost afraid to touch it. Once you get ahold of it, you'll probably be able to fix it yourself. Oh, we also better go over the basics! Here, I have a book somewhere!" Graves instantly dropped to the floor and began searching under his bed. When he finally found the correct book, it turned out that Nacht couldn't read it anyway.  
"Runes aren't too bad once you get used to them," Graces explained. "I can read to you until you learn them."  
Xavier ended up giving him a cheat bookmark that he created in his sketchbook. He was able to scan the texts for what he needed. 

"So, I see you fixed the rust." Graves said, sinking down next to Nacht on the bed. "Your magic is coming along."  
He nodded. "We should tell Joey that we're ready to start doing shows again."  
"Good idea. I just finished writing a new song. It's called Rose Baptism and it's going to make us rich!"

**Author's Note:**

> *West Memphis Three reference, aka the witch hunt of the 90's.  
> *This is totally not a My Immortal reference. Where would anyone get that idea? Lol


End file.
